Elementary school children's perceptions of traditional Korean foods, based on the health belief model

KyoungAe Lee

doi:10.4163/kjn.2013.46.1.86

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Lee: Elementary school children's perceptions of traditional Korean foods, based on the health belief model

Research Article

Korean Journal of Nutrition 2013; 46(1): 86-97.

Published online: 28 February 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4163/kjn.2013.46.1.86

Elementary school children's perceptions of traditional Korean foods, based on the health belief model

KyoungAe Lee

Department of Practical Arts Education and Centre for Child Nutrition Education, Busan National University of Education, Busan 611-736, Korea.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. (kalee@bnue.ac.kr)

Received 28 November 2012 Revised 17 December 2012 Accepted 15 January 2013

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study investigated the eating habits of elementary school children and their perceptions related to traditional Korean foods, based on the health belief model. The subjects were fifth grade elementary school children (274 boys and 274 girls) in eight Korean cities. The results were as follows: The children ate almost three meals per day and were grateful for their meals. However, they irregularly consumed meals and snacks. They tended to eat heartily and did not eat foods that they had not yet eaten. Their meals were based on rice and they have eaten kimchi and vegetables at almost every meal. However, they had undesirable habits in eating other foods, such as fruits, fish, soybeans, and sweet foods. They did not sensitively or seriously perceive their eating habits in relation to their health. They perceived that it was very good for their nutrition, health, and tastes to eat traditional Korean foods, and they had pride in traditional Korean foods and eating style. Although they expressed some difficulty regarding availability and preparation of traditional Korean foods, they hardly felt difficulty in eating them. They had high dietary self-efficacy with regard to eating these foods, except for two items of self-regulation. Their eating habits showed positive correlation with dietary self-efficacy, perceived susceptibility, and perceived benefit. In conclusion, eating habits of elementary school children in relation to traditional Korean foods are not desirable, but not serious. They did not sensitively or seriously perceive their eating habits in relation to their health. However, they perceived that it was very good for their nutrition and health to eat traditional Korean foods, did not have a high level of difficulty in eating them, and had high dietary self-efficacy with regard to eating them. Therefore, we suggest that children should be exposed to various traditional Korean foods, along with education about them, in order to enhance their concern and motivation to eat them.

Keywords: health belief model, traditional Korean food, dietary self-efficacy, eating behavior, elementary school children

Figures and Tables

Table 1

Subjects' characteristics N (%)

Table 2

Children's eating habits by the self-assessment

1) Mean ± SD. The scores ranged from 1 = never to 5 = always agree 2) Reverse response

^*: p < 0.05, ^**: p < 0.01, ^***: p < 0.001

Table 3

Children's perceived susceptibility to diseases^*

1) Mean ± SD. The scores ranged from 1 = never to 5 = always agree

^*: Children's perception of the effects of their eating habit on their health and an attack of diseases

Table 4

Children's perceived severity of undesirable eating habits and obesity

1) Mean ± SD. The scores ranged from 1 = never to 5 = always agree

Table 5

Perceived benefits of eating traditional Korean foods

1) Mean ± SD. The scores ranged from 1 = never to 5 = always agree

^*: p < 0.05, ^**: p < 0.01

Table 6

Perceived barriers to eating traditional Korean foods

1) Mean ± SD. The scores ranged from 1 = never to 5 = always agree

^*: p < 0.05, ^**: p < 0.01, ^***: p < 0.001

Table 7

Children's dietary self-efficacy for eating the traditional Korean foods

1) Mean ± SD. The scores ranged from 1 = never to 4 = always can do

^*: p < 0.05, ^**: p < 0.01

Table 8

Correlation of children's eating habits and the constructs of the health belief model

1) Peason correlation coefficient

^**: p < 0.01, ^***: p < 0.001

Table 9

Multiple regression analysis for children's eating habits

a: Dependent variable: eating habits

^**: p < 0.01, ^***: p < 0.001

Notes

This research was supported by a grant from Youlchon Foundation in 2009

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